Interministry Initiatives

Recently, a member of the Baptist ministry at my school proposed an interministry program in hopes of uniting the campus ministries, so that we become a significant force on the campus. The plan: begin with a meeting to get ideas. So that other students who haven't seen these initiatives can get an idea of what happens with interministry stuff, I'd like to relay the details of the meeting, and the challenges that face these initiatives.

First, the challenges. First and foremost, each ministry has its own way of doing things, and often its own doctrine (especially in the case of denominational ministries). They also have their own interests, so contact with other ministries often leads to either 1) conflict or 2) competition. Also, since each ministry typically has a paid campus minister, it is common for said minister to have to put his ministry ahead of others, since he must report to those paying him what he has done with it. While the man in charge of the presentation said "it's because God just happened to call them to different paths," I take a more realist view. It's not that being paid is bad, it's just that doing ministry as a job will sometimes create a conflict of interest between that ministry and that job, and you have to watch out for it.

If the challenges can be overcome, the tangible benefits are the ability to specialize ministry (i.e. become a literal "part" of the body of Christ), and the ability to coordinate events with other ministries, which can help when it comes to placing people in events, and avoiding copycatting on particular days. Intangible benefits include an opportunity to build up one's brothers, and to talk to others outside of a particular school of thought. This would lead to greater unity and brotherhood among all believers.

For the meeting, I noted the following:

First, there was the sales pitch. It was a long (~20 minutes or so) speech by the man from the Baptist group, mostly detailing how he thought of the idea and what he thought it would entail. Mainly, there was no statement of "let's do this particular thing;" the goal was to gather ideas. In any case, I strongly respect the man for acting, and for putting the meeting together, since no one else has gone this far.

Next came suggestions on the general spirit of the initiative. It is an important question, because if we don't decide where it is we are going, each group within the larger group will make a decision, and we will suddenly find that the ministries will still be fighting each other, and each claiming to be acting in the best interests of the interministry initiative. While a number of ideas about what would be good were given, no one really pointed out the big pink elephant in the room; people are going to disagree, and we have to handle it somehow. The man in charge touched on it lightly, but gave a relativist view; we needed to "accept" what everyone says. Having a level of tolerance does help prevent fights, but there comes a point when too much tolerance waters down any serious discussion of Scripture. It is this watering down that has caused me to distance myself from most campus ministries, therefore I will privately discuss the matter with him later. For some reason, confronting serious issues will go over better in one-on-one environments.

Suggestions were also taken on what to "do." This is, in my opinion, the second most important question next to "what are we trying to accomplish in this ministry?" It was... unsurprising that there weren't as many ideas for action as there were for the general spirit of the ministry. Still, a few were taken, namely shared prayer between the services and a website designed to improve communication between ministries. If they make it to implementation, and everyone agrees to act continually, then we could see some communication and a new kind of brotherhood come out of this initiative.

This will be something to report on in the coming months. Until next time... take care,

Michael